Page 39 of Possession

I rolled my eyes. “Did you talk to Donovan about the York house? Has the security glass been installed?”

His eyes chilled. “Yes. I’m not happy with the changes you made.”

“You’re just pissed that you didn’t think of it sooner.” At his silence, I inched up on the stupid bed. “Or did you?”

“It’s not cost-effective.”

“Screw that. I saw your clock in the showroom. That glass was made for both art and security.”

From the moment I’d walked into Carson Covenant, I’d wanted the unusual glass on my worktable. I’d longed to work with it. So much so that I was even designing pieces with it in mind. I wasn’t ready to tell him that, but it didn’t make it any less true.

At his mutinous look, I tried a different tactic. I held out my hand.

“Dirty pool,” he muttered, but he reached for me.

The fact that I could see him stretched over a billiard table, his intelligent eyes calculating angles and the quickest way to clear the table, was something I had to stuff down for another time.

It must’ve been the outfit.

I rarely thought of Blake as anything other than a corporate shark. Pool shark shouldn’t have been nearly as hot, and yet…

His eyes heated as my nipples pushed against the hospital gown and robe I was wearing.

He leaned into me, and all the while, his thumb brushed over my pulse. “I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, but I’d like to remind you that I’m not a good man. The urge to check over every inch of you to make sure I’m satisfied with your care is raging against a very thin veneer of civility.”

What the hell was I supposed to say tothat?

There had always been an undercurrent of dominance to our physical relationship. Blake had started it with the way he’d touched me that very first night in the vestibule.

Since then, we’d matched each other in intensity. But this was different.

For the first time, he seemed to need me to be more than just a willing woman wrapping around him. If I finally said the three words swimming in my head, in my heart, I’d have to do it without expecting them in return.

Good thing, because they’d never come.

But here and now, the look in his eyes spoke of more than sex and possession. It was there, of course—I wasn’t sure it would ever be completely gone. Madness seemed to follow us into the dark.

I loved it. I craved it as much as I craved the man.

I’d never felt more alive than when I was in Blake’s arms. Or pinned underneath him.

And this whole line of thought wasn’t helping me.

Maybe I needed that bit of uncivilized Blake to feel alive too. Being alone in that cave and facing a life devoid of Blake had been even more terrifying than facing a lack of answers.

I pulled him even closer. His mouth came down on mine in relentless possession instead of the sweetness from earlier.

A throat clearing—loudly—broke us apart.

Blake sat back in his chair and swiped his bottom lip with his thumb.

The nurse bustled in with her cart. She went right for my IV and swapped out a bag. “Visiting hours are over, Mr. Carson. I also need to get Ms. Copeland up and moving for a few minutes, then she will be down for the night.” She rattled a little plastic cup in front of me.

“What’s that?”

“Just Ibuprofen,” she said crisply.

I tossed them in my mouth and accepted the small cup of water.

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